But is there room for another mobile OS in a world ruled by Android and iOS?

I'm an unapologetic fan of Windows Phone 7. I like the aesthetic, the consistent UI design and concepts, and the personal nature of the Start screen. I think it's a solid, stable, fun-to-use platform, and it's my operating system of choice when it comes to smartphones. It has been something of a love/hate relationship, however. As much as I like the software, I haven't liked the way Microsoft has managed it. In particular, the decisions the company has made around patching and updates have left a bad taste in my mouth.

It's fair to say that the smartphone market has not embraced Windows Phone the way I have. One can speculate about the reasons why. In truth, there are probably lots of little reasons rather than any major one; uneven advertising, a reluctance by sales personnel to push the platform (whether for financial reasons or unpleasant associations with Windows Mobile), some lackluster hardware, missing operating system features (especially in the initial version), an initially weak app ecosystem, and a continued lack of apps are all contributing factors. Having a radical new UI probably didn't help much, either; although it works very well in practice, it makes in-store demonstration models hard to relate to, especially for buyers more familiar with iOS and Android.

Windows Phone 8 is Microsoft's latest stab at a smartphone operating system. On the one hand, it changes everything from Windows Phone 7: the Windows CE kernel used in version 7 has been replaced with a Windows NT-derived one, so all the internals are now different. The Start screen, too, has had a shake-up. On the other hand, it changes essentially nothing—the design, the concepts, and the apps themselves are all substantially as they were in Windows Phone 7. The operating system is at once a radical, major version overhaul, and an iterative, incremental point release. Will it be enough to win mainstream appeal?

The most defining, striking aspect of Windows Phone 7 was the Start screen and its Live Tiles. Brightly colored and geometrically arranged, they were the main entry point into Windows Phone's apps and central to its personalization. Apps use their tiles to keep you up-to-date on what's going on, whether it be a count of unread direct messages in a Twitter app, the latest weather, outstanding friend requests in Facebook, or whatever else is appropriate.

Alive with tiles

The biggest, most visible difference in Windows Phone 8? A new, even more customizable Start screen. The original Start screen had two sizes of tile; a standard square and a double-width rectangle. The size was system-determined: regular third-party apps could only have the standard square; built-in apps and special OEM and mobile operator apps could use the double-width size. Further, the original Start screen had an empty gutter down the right hand side with an arrow to indicate that you could swipe sideways to reveal a full alphabetical app list.

Windows Phone 8 makes the Start screen a lot better through a number of small changes. First, the tiles now occupy the full width of the screen; there's no gutter, and while the arrow indicator is still there, it's now at the bottom, below all the tiles. Second, there's a new tile size, a small square that's a quarter the size of the normal squares. Finally, the tile size is now up to the user, not the app, at least to an extent. Every app can now be toggled between the two square sizes. New and built-in apps can also elect to support the double-width size if they want.

This has a couple of effects. First, there are now many more ways of laying out the Start screen; you can now have tiles staggered/offset relative to each other, for example, making the layout a lot less regimented. Second, you now have a lot more control over how apps show data to you. For example, a pinned e-mail app supports all three sizes. There's the standard square used by mail in Windows Phone 7, which shows a count of unread mail and the account name. There's the new small square that shows just an unread count. And there's the double-width size, which shows the account name, unread count, and also a preview of the latest unread mail you've received.

Third-party apps can use these capabilities too. Facebook ditches its blue 'f' in favor of your cover photo, so mine was set to a delicious McRib, for example. Microsoft has retroactively dubbed these apps with Live Tiles "Live Apps."

Enlarge/ Facebook making good use of the double-wide tile to demonstrate the delicious McRib.

These are simple enough changes, but they make a huge difference to the Windows Phone 8 experience. Live Tiles were important in Windows Phone 7, but to an extent, the only option you were given was to have a tile for an app or not, because the options for organizing the tiles were relatively few. The operating system is a lot more flexible now, and it's a lot more personal as a result.

Go stand in the corner

For many busy parents, smartphones have become digital pacifiers, thrust at unruly children in a bid to make them behave, or at least misbehave quietly. However, this is a risky proposition. Sure, when you give your offspring the phone it may be running Angry Birds, but there's little guarantee it will stay there. It could very well end up with your child e-mailing your boss something that is at best incomprehensible, at worst fire-worthy.

Recognizing this reality, Windows Phone 8 has a feature called Kid's Corner. To use Kid's Corner, you first have to set it up by picking the apps, games, music, and videos that you want to limit your kids to. Curiously, photos can't be locked down, and in fact are always available within Kid's Corner as one of the limited customizations that can be performed by the kids using it. So although you can keep kids away from your collection of rude songs and steamy videos, if you've been sexting with your phone, your collection of body part photos is still going to be available to your children. Given the alarming frequency with which people seem to use their phones for photographing body parts, this seems a somewhat surprising omission. Internet Explorer also isn't available in Kid's Corner, though that omission makes more sense.

To get into Kid's Corner, you can either pin a tile to the Start screen and enter it that way, or you can do it from the lock screen. Instead of swiping up to dismiss the lock screen, you swipe left. Once inside Kid's Corner, you can only use the set of applications; the only escape is to go back to the lock screen. Couple this with a lock screen PIN or password, and the device is reasonably locked down—and unlikely to result in any embarrassing e-mails. There is one flaw that somewhat undermines this, however: if you have a PIN set, you'll need to enter it before handing the device to any children, because even Kid's Corner needs a PIN. I wish this were not so.

Enlarge/ Swipe the regular lock screen to the left to reveal the Kid's Corner lock screen.

As someone who has opted for cats rather than children, the utility of Kid's Corner to me personally is negligible. But for those who deal with young children on a day-to-day basis, Kid's Corner appears to be a useful weapon to have in your arsenal.

243 Reader Comments

I'm sorry, but after windows phone 7, windows phone 7.5, and windows phone 8 - I cannot see any reason to ever even suggest people consider windows phones. Not to mention that I do not want Microsoft involved with modern mobile computing. Are people really that quick to forget what happened to all the "windows phone 7" devices? Where every one of you is screwed out of windows 8?

The interface is acceptable for a tablet only, and the rest of what Windows represents is not something that should be supported in any fashion.

I'm sorry, I still don't like that UI.To me it looks flat and cold and unfriendly.

I don't like that UI elements have no depth.I don't like the cut-off text elements.I don't like the wasted space by overly large text menus.I don't like the bad readability of flat white text on image backgrounds.I don't like the sharp corners on ... well, everything.

I'm not sure there's anything anyone could do for me to use this over something else. And it seems like there is practically nothing, this OS has over it's competitors apart from the somewhat different UI.

I honestly think Skype, Skydrive and xbox music will be bigger drivers than any interface 'synergy' between platforms. The whole UI argument that Windows 8 will drive WP8 sales because of familiarity seems pretty weak. There's little app crossover (even 1st party), there's little sync (unlike chrome) there's little practical reason for someone's mobile or desktop OS to influence their purchase of the other. It would be one thing if W8 ran WP8 apps, but that isn't the case. People purchase functionality largely, not look and feel - I've used ipods for nearly a decade without buying an imac. Switchers imo started when you could install Windows on Macs and get twice the desktop ecosystems for your dollar.

So I think practical features, esp in the cloud will go a lot farther with consumers.

Even if Windows 8 is massively successful, the 'Windows 8 Store Style' apps aren't making headway with consumers any time soon. The legacy desktop will rule, if my home and commenters are any indication. The Windows apps are under-featured as a group and the store isn't full. You can't spend your whole computing day in there if you wanted to.

It's more likely that WP7/8, for all its miniscule market share, has more active users/customers. The mobile market is huge, so even at 3% WP7/8 might have more users. Android had the same problem with tablets vs. phones (until recently) and MS is starting out 2 years behind, so the relationship will probably be in reverse, WP8 influences W8 app store purchases.

I'm sorry, I still don't like that UI.To me it looks flat and cold and unfriendly.

I don't like that UI elements have no depth.I don't like the cut-off text elements.I don't like the wasted space by overly large text menus.I don't like the bad readability of flat white text on image backgrounds.I don't like the sharp corners on ... well, everything.

I'm not sure there's anything anyone could do for me to use this over something else. And it seems like there is practically nothing, this OS has over it's competitors apart from the somewhat different UI.

The UI is the best thing in WP7/8. It looks great with all animations, start menu lives. This is just my opinion.

It's fair to say that the smartphone market has not embraced Windows Phone the way I have. One can speculate about the reasons why.

No need to speculate. The single biggest reason is the fact that carriers hate Microsoft, and carriers are to the mobile world what Microsoft is to the desktop one. Now that they're integrating Skype into the platform, it's only gonna get worse. Microsoft is DOA in the mobile market, they are just not admitting it yet.

Oh please, it's not just the carriers. WP7 came very late and was missing significant functionality compared to the competition. WP 7.5 brought some sorely needed features, but it was basically catch-up and the hardware was significantly lacking near the end of its lifespan (no dual core, no high res screens, by far the worst browsing experience). The limitations of the API and the meagre hardware meant some tittles - such as a lot of games - were difficult to port to the platform.

You may have misinterpreted my post as being pro-WP and anti-carriers. I don't even use a smartphone, nor do I really care about Microsoft. There is a number of reasons for the failure, but carrier relationships are the single most important thing in the mobile world. One would expect Microsoft to understand this after their behinds had been kicked in the past by carriers, but they only know how to play the bully part, which isn't working here.

The technical part of it, APIs, applications, the "ecosystem", even OEM partnerships and devices, is secondary. Not that Microsoft has done a good job there either, what with participating in the Nokia shipwreck and all.

It's seems to me that, if anything, it will be the touchscreen devices that help sell Windows 8. As it stands, even my more illiterate clients are used to using previous versions of Windows and there is no way I'd even consider trying to get them to use WIndows 8.

I'm in the market for a smart phone, but am hesitant because they all have warts IMO.

I have an iPad 2, and most of my family has iPhones. iOS does not impress me at all. I don't like the interface. It just feels dated and boring to me. Pages of icons just doesn't strike me as attractive or very functional.

Some of my family have Android phones. They feel laggy, and have problems with apps automatically turning and staying on, wasting battery life. It also suffers from the "pages 'o icons" UI that I hate in iOS.

WP8 looks interesting, but wi-fi turning off when the screen turns off is a big concern, as is the new synching software.

I've yet to find a brand that's both beautiful and functional, and I'm afraid that I'll regret being stuck with whatever I choose.

[quote="Throatwobbler Mangrove"]The regression from the Zune client is quite the shocker, the Zune client was probably MS's best stab at consumer software and it worked very well and looked great.SNIP/quote]

This is the single, most disappointing thing about my whole migration from WP7 to WP8. I didn't even know that they had changed the sync "relationship" at all. SO I thought, "OK, they just probably reskinned Zune with the new branding to make it more inline with what they are pushing."Dowload the new "app" (I'm not sure you ca even call it that, it's so bare-bones) and get SHOCKED, SHOCKED I TELL YOU, with how utterly useless it is! As of right now, there is no music at all on my 920.

Sure, I can drag and drop stuff from the "explorer" window, but that still leaves me scanning thru 60GB of music for the files I want to move over. FOLDER BY FOLDER!

Too bad 100% the people who just bought Windows 7.5 phones won't be able to enjoy it.

THAT kind of lack of planning on Microsoft's part is the number one thing keeping people away from the platform, from what I've heard.

What lack of planning? Windows Phone 7.8 is coming out, and the feature list is a large chunk of what WP8 does except for the extra hardware support. WP7 users aren't getting left out in the cold, they're just dealing with the fact that they have old hardware.

And let's be honest: The only people who have room to complain are Lumia (oncluding me) and Titan2 purchasers, and both groups knew there was a risk they wouldn't be getting WP8, due to legacy hardware.

I like WP8 on my 920 a lot, but my one complaint is that it is less stable than WP7 for me. It's still head and shoulders above any Android device I've used, but more on par with the iPhones I've had. I hope they sort stability issues soon.

As an Apple die-hard, I am pretty impressed by many aspects of Windows Phone.

This is purely my opinion, but I think they made a *huge* mistake by calling it Windows. I think it puts the wrong idea in customers' heads before they even stop to take 5 minutes to evaluate the platform. Should have just called it "Metro", or if they couldn't bully their way to getting rights to the name, find something else. Same thing for WinRT, which should also have been called "Metro".

Windows Phone 7/7.5/8 was such a clean break from the past, and then they saddled it with a name that has way too much legacy baggage in users' minds.

Of course, MS is so committed to the "Windows everywhere" theme that I don't know how seriously they ever considered this.

This would be a phone I would get for my parents. Simple, big buttons to press. That's all they need.

yeah, they will love the horrible battery life. Dumbphone all the way.

And the iPhone and Android phones have exemplary battery life? Yeah did not think so. I could go 4 days on a single charge on my Blackberry, 2 days on my Palm Pre, and I only got 3 to 4 hours on my iPhone and not much more with my Android. So how much worse can a WP device be compared to those?

I'm in the market for a smart phone, but am hesitant because they all have warts IMO.

I have an iPad 2, and most of my family has iPhones. iOS does not impress me at all. I don't like the interface. It just feels dated and boring to me. Pages of icons just doesn't strike me as attractive or very functional.

Some of my family have Android phones. They feel laggy, and have problems with apps automatically turning and staying on, wasting battery life. It also suffers from the "pages 'o icons" UI that I hate in iOS.

WP8 looks interesting, but wi-fi turning off when the screen turns off is a big concern, as is the new synching software.

I've yet to find a brand that's both beautiful and functional, and I'm afraid that I'll regret being stuck with whatever I choose.

You don't HAVE to get a smartphone, ya know. Get an el-cheapo and use it on Metro PCS or somesuch. Lets face it, anything beyond being able to place and receive calls with a cell phone are bells and whistles -if the bells and whistles bother you, go back to the basics.

WP8 looks interesting, but wi-fi turning off when the screen turns off is a big concern, as is the new synching software.

WiFi staying on all the time and letting the user micro-manage the connectivity is even more of a concern. If you don't actively use the device it will (or *should*) only have very meagre data transfer needs and using cellular data then instead is much more power-efficient.

We, the Ars readers, are not the people going into the Windows 8 store.I am of two minds on the whole thing. I like what they are trying to do, but I don't like the compromises they have made.

Two of my neighbors bought PCs this past week. Both have Windows 8 and they seem to love it. Fast and fluid seems to be what they are latching unto. One of them loves the fact that she now has icons for all those "websites" she visits. Just like on her iPhone.

Unlike, I suspect, more than a few posters in this thread, I actually got a WP8 (Nokia 920) the day they were released. I actually went to the store expecting to get a GS3 (after having been an iPhone user since it was first released) and ended up walking out with the 920.

I hadn't actually had hands-on with W8 until then, but I really started digging the live tiles. Yeah, they kind of look blocky at first but after seeing them "in motion", they are really, really nice. First, the lock screen has all the info I need at a glance to know if that last notification sound/vibrate needs to be looked at immediately, but when I unlock the screen, all the tiles are showing me useful information and it's "simple"... everything is obvious and in its place. After using my 920 for a week, now, my iPhone screen looks full of dead/wasted/cluttered space. I can take a spin through all my live tiles in a second or two. With my iPhone, I did arrange important things on the first screen (and on the second... and third...), but it still requires flipping through multiple pages of apps and just seeing a number in a little bubble and some of those apps I don't really care about. The live tiles show only the apps I care about. If I want to see the others, I can flip to the full list (which is also easy to navigate in alphabetic order... which expands to an indexed list by starting letter when you get enough apps).

As far as all the rest, it just looks a lot fresher than my iPhone. The performance of the 920 is good, everything is smooth, etc. I like the way the app stack works. The apps I'm using look good and seem to work well. The lock screen is useful and the live tiles are useful. I control what the live tiles include and their size (1x1, 2x2, 4x2) and that typically controls how much info I'm presented with.

Sure, there are some things missing still... mostly I miss some of the apps that I got used to using, but I like the rest of the phone enough that I can wait a while. I'm really liking my 920 and WP8 and am eager to see new features, fixes, and more apps.

I actually hated Zune app. Personally for me the best would be for the phones to simply mount as normal drive where i can move my music folders and they would show up as playlists. I guess most people's music is an unorganized mess on their harddrives because the majority seem to adore itunes and zune.

Great review. I played with Windows Phone 7 a bit when it arrived and did come away liking it quite a bit. Windows Phone 8 looks like a great update.

I have to raise a minor objection to your suggestion that Siri is a "novelty" feature that doesn't hold up in use. I have Siri do all kinds of things for me, from placing calls, dictating texts to my wife, creating reminders and getting directions. Once you get a feel for the kinds of tasks Siri is good at, you find it's much more efficient to get those tasks done with Siri than within an app.

Wow, voted down on my prior comment because I said the person did a disservice advising friends to buy this phone because of two huge issues -- apps and a lousy web browser compatibility for the mobile web.

Lots of Microsoft marketing people on this site nowadays...

I suspect it's because of your implied assertion that the mobile Web should support only WebKit browsers. That's undemocratic and flies in the face of the Web standards process.

The current situation is becoming as bad as it was 10 years ago when many Web sites only worked well in IE 6.

WP8 looks interesting, but wi-fi turning off when the screen turns off is a big concern, as is the new synching software.

WiFi staying on all the time and letting the user micro-manage the connectivity is even more of a concern. If you don't actively use the device it will (or *should*) only have very meagre data transfer needs and using cellular data then instead is much more power-efficient.

Wi-Fi stays on if there is an active transfer (e.g. download from the store).It also does not turn off if the phone is plugged in.

This article reads like a Microsoft rep speaking to loyal followers ("all hope is not lost"), not an independent review.

Yes, but this is how most of tech websites work nowadays, still this review isn't bad at all. Maybe that remarks about WP8 future weren't necessary. Reviews on Ars are generally very solid and this isn't exception. Some other topics are covered badly thought.

I think this review forgot to mention that WP8 devices are now seen as USB Mass Storage devices, aka, nice-looking USB keys, which in some cases might ease some of the syncing pains brought by the new barebones apps.

I know this will be lost among the deluge of comments, but I am now a happy Windows 8 phone customer. I'm showing it off to as many people as I can to hopefully get them talking about it or thinking about it. I hope this OS is successful this time around because this could really be a good kick in the pants for Android and iOS and I'd love to have a strong app ecosystem like the other two do as well.

Seriously, I love this phone, and the crazy new lense on my Lumia 810 is brilliant!

I'm sorry, I still don't like that UI.To me it looks flat and cold and unfriendly.

I don't like that UI elements have no depth.I don't like the cut-off text elements.I don't like the wasted space by overly large text menus.I don't like the bad readability of flat white text on image backgrounds.I don't like the sharp corners on ... well, everything.

I'm not sure there's anything anyone could do for me to use this over something else. And it seems like there is practically nothing, this OS has over it's competitors apart from the somewhat different UI.

The obvious question is: Have you used it?

Me I love that UI, but I will not replace my poor Galaxy Gio in a while.

I think this review forgot to mention that WP8 devices are now seen as USB Mass Storage devices, aka, nice-looking USB keys, which in some cases might ease some of the syncing pains brought by the new barebones apps.

I really hope that WP8 becomes a success, even if it's a mild one. I would like more parity in the marketplace. I was really looking forward to trying out the Lumia 920 until it was revealed that it would only be on AT&T. Because of that, I ended up going with the Galaxy S3. Hopefully when my next upgrade comes along I can be able to choose a phone from a more robust WP8 ecosystem.

Too bad 100% the people who just bought Windows 7.5 phones won't be able to enjoy it.

THAT kind of lack of planning on Microsoft's part is the number one thing keeping people away from the platform, from what I've heard.

What lack of planning? Windows Phone 7.8 is coming out, and the feature list is a large chunk of what WP8 does except for the extra hardware support. WP7 users aren't getting left out in the cold, they're just dealing with the fact that they have old hardware.

And let's be honest: The only people who have room to complain are Lumia (oncluding me) and Titan2 purchasers, and both groups knew there was a risk they wouldn't be getting WP8, due to legacy hardware.

I like WP8 on my 920 a lot, but my one complaint is that it is less stable than WP7 for me. It's still head and shoulders above any Android device I've used, but more on par with the iPhones I've had. I hope they sort stability issues soon.

7.8 does exactly nothing that wp8 does, except to make the UI look similar. They can't, and that's the problem with the way they did this in the beginning. Now, some of that problem was unavoidable, but some wasn't. The unavoidable part was using CE. The avoidable part was in using 6R3 rather than moving to CE 7, and updating that instead. That would have allowed multiple cores, higher resolutions, etc.

But they couldn't go to NT right away, because they didn't have the time. People forget just how much time this takes—years! However much trouble they are in now, it boggles the mind to think about how much they would be in if Win Mobile had been the only thing on people's minds until now.

That said, there are no real Win Phone 8 apps for these new phones, and the 920 is already being sold at a bargain price of $99 with a two year contract. No one is making money on this.

I'm in the market for a smart phone, but am hesitant because they all have warts IMO.

I have an iPad 2, and most of my family has iPhones. iOS does not impress me at all. I don't like the interface. It just feels dated and boring to me. Pages of icons just doesn't strike me as attractive or very functional.

Some of my family have Android phones. They feel laggy, and have problems with apps automatically turning and staying on, wasting battery life. It also suffers from the "pages 'o icons" UI that I hate in iOS.

WP8 looks interesting, but wi-fi turning off when the screen turns off is a big concern, as is the new synching software.

I've yet to find a brand that's both beautiful and functional, and I'm afraid that I'll regret being stuck with whatever I choose.

i agree.

i have a galaxy running android 4, a iphone 4s, and now a lumia 920.

none are impressive or really "killer". add that to the crazy fees that data/smartphones get and well i'm very close to bowing out of the game and going back to a dumbphone and use my work 4s for any type of games/web on the go. helps that it's free.

i've got a week or so left till my 14 day grace period is up with this lumia. it's a nice phone but there are way too many unknowns. i don't want another android that gets 1 update if that then you have to buy a new one. yeah, way to go google. the updating situation is just abysmal there so i can't imagine who would recommend android. and yeah, IOS is boring and the store interface on the phone is probably the worse thing i've ever seen. add that to itunes to actually get shit on the phone and yeah. fuck that.

so, i'll probably just bail on this, let my wife keep her lumia 920 (she loves it but she's not a "power user") and just add me a line for 10$. probably the winning bet since for me at least, smartphones are pretty gimmicky.